America’s Black Tuesday
Maybe it will become known as America’s “Black Tuesday” that, when the smoke clears and the damage is assessed, will surpass the scale of death and destruction of Australia’s own infamous Black Tuesday wildfire event. Or maybe it will fade away in obscurity as climate catastrophes becomes commonplace. But either way, September 8, 2020, will be remembered by most wildland firefighters who were doing their craft that day.
Even without climate change, the West Coast’s Mediterranean climate brings summers that offer little in the way of rain, so the fire season is one long dry spell. Say all you want about later season-ending rains and more winter precipitation coming as rain rather than snow, but the summers… A little monsoonal rain in July is almost worth the lightning risk.
Now enter the climate change signal on that bell curve of energy release component (ERC), a measure of the dryness of the woody debris scattered across the forest floor. Mini-droughts and heat pulses are now embedded in the already-hot summer, with Central and Sacramento Valley highs exceeding 100 degrees for one or two weeks straight, 110 becoming commonplace, and a staggering 130 degrees just recorded in Death Valley. These periods of heat and low humidity dry out fuels to a point never measured in the past, and the stage is thus set for explosive fire behavior.
This is how it was in 2018 and so it is again in 2020. This is how you burn the south half of the Mendocino National Forest in 2018 (Ranch Fire – part of the Mendocino Complex that remains the largest fire in recorded California history) and the north half in 2020 (The August Complex – which is at number 4 but still moving up in the ranks). The litany of destruction over the past 48 hours is staggering. Add to the already record dry fuels a monster east wind that impacted the entire West Coast, and you have the recipe for disaster. These east winds that carry hot, dry inland air go by many names- Diablo, Santa Anna, and so on. In the drainages where these winds lined up with topography, like along the McKenzie River and the Feather River Canyon, these winds accelerate, pushing the fire with such sudden ferocity that the fire arrived at people’s doorstep well before the evacuation notice.
Word first came from the small town of Malden in eastern Washington that was 80% destroyed by fire. The east winds spread south accelerating fires coming down out of the Cascades like the Lions Head Fire that merged with the Beachie Creek Fire devastating Breitenbush, Detroit, and Mill City, Oregon. Then a swath of destruction from the Holiday Farm Fire along the McKenzie River from Blue River to Vida, that even included evacuation notices in Springfield and Eugene, Oregon. The smaller, but just as dangerous Almeda Drive Fire devastated Pheonix and Talent and had truckers abandoning their rigs along Interstate Five. For a period traffic coming into Oregon from California was closed on I-5. The Governor of Oregon has stated 'This could be the greatest loss of life and structures ... in state history'.
Moving into California, the news was no better. After the first climate-driven drying period was followed in mid-August by a rare lightning storm in the foothills around the Bay Area, many of those fires still had open line. With the ranks of CalFIre handcrews decimated by COVID-19 containment, targets on these earlier fires were slower than normal. A new fire, the Slater Fire, burned from Takilma in Oregon all the way along the Black Bear Road corridor, burning homes in Happy Camp. The August Complex blew out of the Mendocino National Forest, burning homes around Covelo. In probably the longest run of the day the Bear Fire roared down the Feather River Canyon, spotting across Lake Oroville destroying the community of Berry Creek, a town of 1,200. From where I sit in the Sacramento Valley, a dark pall and ash has filled the sky all day.
Further south, the Creek Fire, that only days ago required the National Guard to ferry hundreds of recreationists from a campground around the Mammoth Pool Reservoir to safety, was reminiscent of this past winter’s fires in Australia or in Greece last July, where the only option for escape was to run to the water. Fires ravaged Shaver Lake and Alder Springs. Finally, high in the Coast Range above California’s beloved Big Sur Coast, 14 firefighters were overrun when the Nacimiento Station was destroyed. All-in-all it was an unmitigated disaster with thousands of homes lost and likely dozens, if not hundreds, dead. The truth won’t be known for weeks as the cadaver dogs do their grim work.
Already, the timber lobbyists and industry shills are busy making the claim that loggers are bigger heroes than firefighters, if only they could cut more timber, leaving behind more flammable plantations. But the truth is - this was a climate change enhanced dry spell with a rare lightning storm followed by an even more rare regionwide east wind. The notion that all these fires could be stopped is sheer hubris. No amount of super airtankers, engines, dozers and crews could have made a dent in yesterday’s destruction. We don’t try to fight hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. Yesterday was a sheer force of nature, and as it is often the case, it will be nature that puts these fires out, not firefighters. Not to detract from the fine work these folks do, but without a break in temperature and humidity, we’re back on our heels in a defensive posture, just trying to protect lives.
Taking the most merchantable, least flammable objects out of the forests - the old mature trees – and leaving behind flammable plantations is just more hubris. We need to act now to preserve the oldest trees doing what they do best, sequestering carbon in place. We do that by using more fire in the shoulder seasons, the spring and the fall, to create a network of burned areas that can reduce future fire risk. Instead we pat ourselves on the back when we put the easy fires out, and wonder why we have problems at times like these. Many homes could be saved by proper building codes and vegetation management ordnances. Yesterday, it wasn’t just homes. It was wood lots, timber waiting to be cut to dimension, businesses, and people. We need to rethink where and how we build and how we do or don’t use fire as a tool. And above all, we need to respect nature that more and more frequently is bringing us grim reminders that our hubris has dangerous and deadly consequences.